By Stephanie Paul University of Nebraska-Lincoln Danny Gawlowski, 35, found fulfillment in his life when he became director of digital imagery and innovation for The Seattle Times. “As a photographer there is a direct satisfaction by creating your own work, but as an editor you get a satisfaction of fulfillment by the work of others,” Gawlowski said in a phone interview. Before Gawlowski was the director of digital imagery and innovation, he worked for nine years as a photographer. One of his first internships was at The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He also interned at The Dallas Morning News, Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, Evansville Courier & Press and The Plain Dealer. After graduating in 2004 from Ball State University with his bachelor’s in journalism and anthropology, Gawlowski became a freelance photojournalist and then a staff photojournalist at The Bellingham Herald in Washington. While working at The Bellingham Herald he attended the Seattle Film Institute and studied in the documentary filmmaking program. He later joined The Seattle Times, where he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2010 and 2015. He won the first Pulitzer Prize in 2010 in the breaking news category, for his role in the staff reporting of the Lakewood police killings. He received a second Pulitzer in 2015, also in the breaking news category, for team coverage of a 2014 landslide in Oso, Washington. Gawlowski says it's best to be accurate, not necesssarily first, with the news. “It's better to be fast and right than being just fast,” said Gawlowski. Gawlowski also volunteers for the Kalish. Now, Gawlowski is the director of the five-day-workshop. As the director of the workshop, he is trying to get new sponsorship and a curriculum for next year's Kalish. “The Kalish helped me understand that I could become a editor,” said Gawlowski. As an editor, Gawlowski makes judgment calls almost daily, but one of the most memorable was when one of his staff members came up to him to talk about a climate change story he was working on. Gawlowski saw the potential that the story could have, so he got the photojournalist training and the equipment he needed to make the story a success. The project, published in 2014, won the Alfred du-Pont Award and a Emmy Award nomination. Gawlowski became a journalist to tell other people’s stories, he said. “I really like the ability to inform people and I really am committed on telling the truth,” said Gawlowski. After being in the journalism field for over 16 years, Gawlowski reflected on the changing face of journalism. “It took a long time for newspapers to see themselves as a news organization. I think finally now our news organizations are now just catching up to where people’s news consumption habits are, but we still have a ways to go,” said Gawlowski. With today's news consumption habits, a story can pop up on someone's phone or social media any time of the day, which keeps journalists on their toes. Because social media is so popular for news, Gawlowski said, “News is more of a conversation now than a lecture.” Being a journalist in the social media age has made Gawlowski appreciate social media. He uses social media to listen to what people have to say. The Seattle Times uses social media to deliver its stories, which is important, he said. “We (as journalists) expect we can just put up our stories on our websites and somehow people are supposed to just come and find the stories," he said. He said newspapers can deliver stories directly to readers now. This is particularly important for niche stories that affect groups of people who don't typically visit The Seattle Times site on a daily basis, he said. For the next generation of journalists coming out of college, Gawlowski wants to remind them that, “if you are never failing, then you are never moving at all.”
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By Andrea Wach University of Nebraska-Lincoln Craig Chandler has built his ethical base from years of experience as a photographer and editor. Throughout Chandler’s career, he has strived for integrity and trust in all aspects of his work. “A photo can be taken many different ways. A photographer needs to be honest with him or herself down every road,” Chandler said in an interview at the University Communication building, where he works as the director of photography for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln University Communication. Chandler said his key to success is having an ethical baseline in all aspects of his life. “Trust is a big part of journalism. It comes in every area of our work," he said. "When people ask me to take a photo, they know I’m going to make a decent picture of them. If I want them to stand in water up to their waist, I can talk them into it. They will do slightly odd things because of their trust in me.” Chandler, 57, said trust played a major role in reporting the Von Muar shooting in Omaha nine years ago when Chandler was on staff at the Omaha World-Herald. A man with a rifle opened fire at an Omaha shopping mall, killing eight and then himself. The call came on the scanner and the staff photograhpers dropped what they were doing. Chandler was on the radio within seconds and had six photographers inside the parking lot before police shut access down. His staff captured photos of individuals walking out with their hands up. “My staff was good, and I knew what they could do. I had trust in them, and they had trust in me,” Chandler said. “We had photos everyone wanted. They ended up on front pages across the nation. Journalistically, we did what we were supposed to do.” During Chandler’s time at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa, in 2001, National Guard troops were sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, shortly after the 9/11 terror attack. “It was very hush hush,” said Chandler. Six months after troops were sent in, the media was allowed to photograph the base. Chandler said the media were allowed to go up to a certain line, but no further. This created the same picture from the same spot for months as media buses came in and out of the base. When Chandler did visit the base, he and his reporter developed a relationship with an Army public information officer, and eventually were allowed to spend three hours in the tents taking photos of troops. In the tents, the troops had photos of their family and friends hung up, almost in a summer camp fashion. The photos Chandler captured were published so the newspaper’s readers, which included the families whose loves ones were serving the country, could see and experience the troop’s mission. “We weren’t demanding that we could get in,” Chandler said, “but we kept talking to people, finding other people and building relationships to get those photos for the family members.” Chandler said relationship building is essential in his work and advises photographers to build a reputation of trust and integrity. “Keep pushing. Be relentless. Don’t let people tell you what you can or can’t do,” Chandler said. “Be open to editing, but if it’s the right thing keep pushing for it.” Chandler started his career at Kansas State University in 1978, pursuing a degree in Journalism while working for the college newspaper and interning in the winter and summer. As a freshman, he was a stringer for United Press International, earning $15 a photo. In 1979, he placed ninth in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program. Then in 1981, he placed third in the College Photographer of the Year contest sponsored by the University of Missouri. In 1981, Chandler traveled Kansas as a staff photographer and pursued design and picture editing. In 1988, he joined the the San Antonio Express-News as an assistant picture editor. In 1989, he was hired as photo and graphic editor at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa, overseeing a staff of four and various interns. Fourteen years later, Chandler was hired at the Omaha World-Herald, where ten photographers covered news across the state every day. He worked at the World-Herald for five years as a photo and graphics editor, before switching jobs again. “I love that I am back to taking pictures all the time. The best part of my job is that every day is different,” Chandler said. Chandler takes photos at UNL events across all campuses. He challenges other photographers to look for the little moments, keep eyes on what's happening, try new angles and be creative and passionate. “Always have your camera on you, and always be willing to stop and shoot,” Chandler said. By Sydney Paulak University of Nebraska-Lincoln Leah Bercerra, 27, believes that having a wide range of skills is the key to being competitive in journalism, especially when it comes to technology and social media. Becerra, a digital editor at The Kansas City Star, has been laid-off before, so she understands the turbulent industry and the need to stand out. “I got a job after I was laid-off really quickly and I was hired because of those skills,” she said. Bercerra graduated from the University of Missouri in 2012 with a degree in journalism and a multimedia emphasis. She learned to work with photos, videos and coding. She found the coding to be particularly useful. “Acquiring those skills was the single most important decision and thing I have ever done for myself,” she said. Becerra took a basic coding class in college. “I took the class because I was already very comfortable with computers and it seemed natural to learn the skill,” she said. “It also seemed like a good idea because of how important web presence is for publications these days.” The rest of her skills have been self-taught, but she said it would not have been possible without learning the basics of coding first. Becerra landed her first job working as a graphics reporter at the Springfield News-Leader in Springfield, Missouri. There she helped create a database of city methamphetamine labs that had been located and which ones had been cleaned up. From there, she went to the Omaha World-Herald as a web editor and got to work on more coding projects. Then she moved on to be a content producer for Newsy, an online video news source. She created videos about technology and business news. Becerra took everything she learned and applied it to her job as a digital editor at The Kansas City Star. She posts stories to the newspaper website, adds photos and videos and posts to social media. She says the best part of her the job is that every day is different. “I might be working on a project one day, social media another and even stories from time to time,” she said. Working with social media and the 24/7 news cycle has also been a new challenge. Becerra says that getting the story out quickly is the goal, but accuracy and ethics always come first. “We are always careful to get the story accurate even over getting it first," she said. Becerra has had to judge the legitimacy of rumors before. One time her publication was covering a breaking story about a chemical leak from a business. The leak had caused air pollution in the area. The publication received a rumor that 10 people were dead. This information did not seem legitimate or plausible, so Becerra and her team chose not to run the rumor. It was later proven false. Social media intensifies issues caused by false information and constant news, she said. “Social media has forced us to have a stricter view on news feed. It forces us to compete with people who aren’t traditional news,” says Becerra. The average citizen could create a false social media post based off rumors because he or she doesn’t have the same standards or reputation as a media outlet, she said. An example Becerra gave is a local Twitter account in Omaha. A man with a police radio tweets the calls he overhears. He is not thinking about accuracy; he just reports. This could lead to some potentially false or misleading information being shared, she said. These news trends in the world of journalism require young people entering the field to be able to adapt, she said. If Becerra could give advice to young journalists, she would encourage them to broaden their horizons and learn new skills. She also encourages networking while still in college. “It helped me find jobs and helped me talk about projects I’m working on,” she says. “If you know someone that specializes in something, it helps you out, especially with the web.” By Bo Prater University of Nebraska-Lincoln After 16 years as a reporter for the Journal Star, Brian Rosenthal decided to jump ship and try his hand writing for Husker athletics for the universtiy, not the newspaper. Rosenthal left the Journal Star this year to take the first-ever full-time sports writing position for Nebraska Athletics. Rosenthal likes the security and lower stress levels working for the university. He also gets to work first hand with Husker athletes and coaches. Randy York, longtime Husker writer, wrote a story on why Rosenthal was a great fit for the position, citing Rosenthal's experience. He's taught at Hastings College and collaborated on a sports writing textbook. The new transition has perks, Rosenthal said. For one, since he works within the university, “the access is much better." If he is working on a story about a player or coach, his access makes it a lot easier to follow up with an individual or to get any questions answered. The new job is also less stressful. He gets to look for and write about the stories he enjoys, and believes his readers will too. “Readers enjoy human-interest stories,” said Rosenthal. The Husker writer recently wrote two stories on walk-ons Tanner Zlab and Samuel Hahn. Rosenthal said it's nice to focus on lesser-known players sometimes. Rosenthal saw a lot of change during his 16 years at the Journal Star, and he continues to see the communications landscape change. “Its been the biggest change in my career,” said Rosenthal. Although the change has its positives, some negatives have come along the way too. In today’s sports world, it is common for errors to happen more frequently than in the past, he said. “Millennials want information now, which leads to bad judgement calls, errors”, said Rosenthal. “Misspelled names and wrong scores have become more common than in the past.” On the flipside, Rosenthal can reach more people with social media than in the past. For example, the Nebraska Huskers Facebook page has taken advantage of the new live video chat. Rosenthal uses it to discuss weekly matchups and answer any questions that followers post on the video. Rosenthal, 44, has put a lot of time and work in to get where he is today. He graduated from Nemaha Valley High School in Nebraska. Then, he graduated from Hastings College with a communications degree. He worked for several radio stations including the KNCY-AM in Nebraska City, KHAS-AM in Hastings and the Hastings College campus radio station KFKX-FM. Rosenthal spent three years at the York News-Times and then three years in Hutchinson, Kansas, covering the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team. In 2001, Rosenthal made his transition to the Journal Star. At the Journal Star, Rosenthal covered Nebraska football along with Nebraska men’s and women’s basketball. “Make yourself marketable, and have a wide interest,” Rosenthal said of how to succeed at a newspaper. For someone with interest in communications, whether it’s writing, reporting or editing, Rosenthal pitched some advice. “Consult people in the field, and make yourself known,” Rosenthal said. By Baylee Vrtiska University of Nebraska-Lincoln Melissa Fry, a former graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and 32-year-old co-anchor for KETV NewsWatch 7 in Omaha looks back on her time as a reporter and how it compares to anchoring. During Fry’s last semester of college in 2006, she was offered a job at KLKN-TV Channel 8, the ABC affiliate in Lincoln, where she was a reporter and anchor for two and a half years. After networking for a few years, Fry wanted to go back home to Omaha and continue her career. Fry applied to KETV NewsWatch 7 seven times, before she was offered a job in 2008 as a reporter. “I really just found a passion with telling hometown stories and really getting to know the community and how it works even deeper,” said Fry in a phone interview. During Fry’s days as a reporter, she went to work around 9:15 a.m. or 1:15 p.m. On her way to work, she called sources and asked what was going on, trying to get story ideas. Once Fry got to work, she prepared for her 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. meetings. During the meetings, reporters and editors discussed who was covering what story. At the end of the day, if Fry was out in the field, she came back and put her story together. After 10 years of being a reporter, Fry switched to the anchor side, which included what she considers “a pretty unique schedule.” Fry works a split shift, waking up at 2:30 a.m. for the morning show that runs from 4:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. After the morning show, Fry calls people to see what’s going on in the community, looks for stories on social media, updates the KETV NewsWatch 7 website and puts together videos. At 9 a.m., she heads home, but comes back at 4 p.m. to anchor the 5 p.m. newscast. “You kind of have a little bit more of a management role when you’re an anchor. You’ve got to make sure all the scripts are correct and make sure all the information that’s coming in is put into the newscast,” said Fry. Fry said that after reporting for 10 years, she misses it. "It was a great way to get to know the community,” she said. However, the switch from reporter to anchor was the best move for her now because she’s pregnant, expanding her family of five to a family of six. Fry was first interested in journalism as a young girl, but she fell in love with it during an internship at KETV NewsWatch 7 her junior year in college. She said internships are important. “Get the internship," she said. "Lazy people will never make it. It’s a fun career, but it’s not a normal Monday through Friday (job). Jump in head first. Jump in the fire. Experience as much as you can because it’s really a ride." A career as a television news anchor isn’t always easy. Fry has made some tough ethical decisions. KETV’s reporter and photographer went to the scene where a women’s boyfriend shot and killed her daughter. The reporter caught the mother wailing on tape when she came home and realized that her daughter had been shot. The station wanted to air the wailing sound on that night’s newscast. Fry was so upset. She felt like they might be taking it too far. “It was very compelling and unforgettable. I thought, ‘Why do we need this?’ I took it up with the producers and we didn’t end up airing it,” said Fry. “When you get one side of the story and can’t get ahold of the other side, ask yourself, ‘Do you absolutely have to use it? Are you going to hurt somebody’s reputation?’ You’ll make those decisions all the time as a journalist,” said Fry. Editing is also a huge part of Fry’s job. Fry writes and edits the ticker that runs at the bottom of the screen during newscasts; she edits her script and she also writes and edits her own stories. When Fry is editing her script, she takes out unnecessary words and edits for what the viewer wants and needs to know. “The hardest part of writing is knowing what to keep and what not to. Keep it short and simple,” said Fry. Fry believes the most satisfying part of her job understanding issues that are going on in the community. Fry enjoyed writing a story several years ago about the Omaha community supporting a boy who had cancer. “I love telling that story, whether it’s a feel-good story or a story that has changed someone’s life or is going to change someone’s life. I love really getting to know people and issues that make Omaha what it is,” said Fry. Fry had this advice for reporters: “As hard as it is, read, watch and study the news. Let yourself be passionate about it." By Lea Swatosch University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glen Crevier, 63, has been in the newspaper industry since 1976. His hard work and passion for sports journalism has helped him work his way up to assistant managing editor for sports at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.
“You need to persevere. It’s a tough business, especially in sports,” said Crevier, who was born in Rhode Island and worked as a reporter, copy editor and columnist at various newspapers before landing at the Star Tribune. His determination through the years has paid off. Crevier now manages about 30 reporters, columnists and editors at the paper. His staff covers each sport from high-school all the way to professional leagues. Minnesota has a team in all four major professional leagues, so managing the sports section is a big job, he said. The StarTribune sports section features local and national stories. This makes it harder to decide what four or five stories they’re going to put on the cover for the day. One of his reporters wrote a story on the Ryder Cup, which was held in Minnesota this year. The paper also reports on historic Minnesota sports figures. The StarTribune published a compelling article when Flip Saunders, former University of Minnesota basketball player and Timberwolves coach, died in 2015 at the age of 60. Crevier also manages budgets, including staff travel budgets. Crevier graduated from Hiram College in Ohio with a bachelor’s degree in political science. In college, he worked in the sports information office and also for the school newspaper. Crevier knew from the beginning that he wanted to be involved with newspapers. After college, Crevier worked as a sports columnist at the Arizona Daily Star. Then he moved up to become the sports editor for The News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington. He was recruited to Minneapolis from Washington for his current position. Crevier has been at the StarTribune for 18 years. Crevier comes into the office everyday at 9 a.m. He starts his day with a meeting to figure out what the newspaper should do online. His days didn’t always start like this. He has watched the 24/7 news cycle emerge and he said that it has changed everything. Instead of focusing on just a daily newspaper, the staff now plans the website all day long. “There are two parallel tracks during the day to have immediacy,” Crevier said. Some people wonder if news stories published online are as accurate as printed stories. Crevier believes that the StarTribune edits online stories with the same standards as print stories. Crevier said that editors know how important it is to be accurate in all of their stories. Every story is edited before it is posted. The StarTribune uses AP Style for editing. Crevier thinks that it is very important to be consistent in print and online. AP Style is an important guide that allows the newspaper to stay consistent and accurate throughout its reporting, he said. The use of social media has evolved with the 24/7 news cycle. Crevier said the StarTribune staff uses social media all of the time. “The biggest thing is, we are trying to reach a broad audience,” Crevier said. The StarTribune and most of its staff use many different social media platforms to engage with the public. Crevier uses Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Crevier said editors make hard news decisions often. Crevier said that he finds the hardest news judgment decisions involve high school sports stories. The ethical decisions get tough when deciding how to report on stories involving high school students engaging in questionable behavior. Crevier has found himself in these situations when deciding whether or not to run stories, such as one in 2013 about some high school hockey players who were given game suspensions. Crevier and his staff had to take into account that the story might embarrass the students. In his 40 years in the newspaper industry, Crevier has seen what it takes to succeed. There isn’t a position in sports journalism that can be easily obtained, he said. He was willing to move for the job and it was worth it in the end. “Sometimes you have to go where the job takes you,” Crevier said. By Cassidy Adolf University of Nebraska-Lincoln Everyone has dreams, and Bridget Fargen, anchor for KOLN 10/11 Now, is no different. And though her career has taken her to a place she didn’t plan on, she has no regrets. “I just never turned down an open door because I never knew where it was going to take me,” Fargen said. Fargen, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee graduate, initially wanted to be a sports reporter. Once she landed her first job at WJFW-TV in 2008, which was a half news and half sports, she expected more sports to come her way. Fargen found that was not the case. Fargen found that most sports departments only have three to four reporters, so she decided to go with the path that was in front of her. “News opportunities kept presenting themselves,” Fargen said. “I just never turned down an open door because I never knew where it was going to take me.” Fargen then became a weekend news anchor/reporter at 10/11 in Lincoln in 2010. Fargen, 31, then became the weekday evening anchor for the station. While she says that it wasn’t her initial dream, she feels very fortunate. “I’m getting to tell stories and hopefully make an impact on people’s lives,” Fargen said. One way Fargen is making a difference in the Lincoln area is by telling the stories of the people who live in the community. She has found that many people are willing to “reach out and work with the media.” Fargen tells viewers, “You are your eyes and ears in your community.” She urges the 10/11 audience to send what they see and hear to advocate for their neighborhoods and to make the news more pertinent to the community. Fargen also finds the input from the community important because it helps fuel the 24-hour news cycle. “If you have viewers who are wiling to share information and content with people, you have that much more,” Fargen said. Fargen finds the endless cycle to be a good and bad thing. Because of the nature of how news is distributed, by the time the evening news rolls around, Fargen said that there’s a high chance that viewers have already heard the story. Fargen tries to find a “nugget,” or a piece of information to tell a story in a different way. “Sometimes you can make an extra phone call,” Fargen said. “Find a new twist.” Fargen admitted that sometimes it isn’t possible to find a new angle, but she says it's still important to try to advance the story. While the 24-hour news cycle is about getting up-to-date information to the readers or viewers, accuracy and sound judgment are still just as important. Fargen said that accuracy has suffered throughout the news world because of the 24-hour news cycle, but as far as judgment calls, she finds that every story is different. “It’s about taking one case at a time, never apply anything across the board,” she said. Fargen said that balance is very important when making news judgment calls. When to give a warning to viewers about graphic content and how to show that content are among many questions that are asked before airing certain stories. “Don’t be afraid to make the wrong call,” Fargen said. Fargen acknowledged that sometimes it may not be right, but if the conversation took place, then it’s something to learn from. “There is always discussion in the newsroom,” Fargen said. Fargen acknowledged that working in a newsroom requires a lot of teamwork, and for a journalist to wear many “hats.” In larger markets, Fargen said that there are often many people assigned to the many jobs that produce news. Lincoln is a smaller market, so Fargen has to take on many responsibilities in order to deliver. “The viewer doesn’t care when the news open rolls,” Fargen said. Fargen said that it can be hectic at times, but it’s always important to make the right call to give the viewer what they need. As Fargen has grown in her work, she has some advice for aspiring journalists. “Don’t be afraid to take advantage of opportunity. Be willing to adapt and be flexible, and be your own advocate,” Fargen said. By Matt Hanson University of Nebraska-Lincoln Some reporters would balk at the idea of covering a high school poetry slam. Some reporters would dismiss an event like that as insignificant, commonplace, not worth the time or effort they’d need to write about it. Matthew Hansen has never been that kind of reporter. For most of his career, the 35-year-old Omaha World-Herald columnist has been the other kind of reporter: the kind who hears about a high school poetry contest, decides to check it out, then comes back and writes a 1,000-word story about poetry, love, loss, the optimism of youth and the wonders of the human spirit. That’s exactly what Hansen did for a 2013 column. “If you are one of those people who are sure our best is behind us and our worst ahead of us, one of those people bracing for the future, one of those people whose ability to laugh, to think, to feel is blowing away like Nebraska topsoil in a psychic drought, then let me kindly suggest a new cure for what ails you,” he wrote in the opening paragraph of the piece. Hansen might as well have used the same words to introduce his body of work as a journalist and a columnist. Throughout his career, he has aspired to bring a certain degree of positivity to his journalism, especially to his columns. “I think a common theme of my column is attempting to show people that everything is in fact not going to hell, that there are reasons to be optimistic about the future, millennials, etc,” Hansen said in a phone interview. Hansen’s column has provided him with an ideal platform to showcase his distinctive brand of optimistic, observational narrative journalism. With just two columns required each week, and almost no expectations regarding the contents of those columns, Hansen enjoys an usually high level of creative leeway for any journalist, let alone one as young as he is. Hansen said this means he can write about pretty much whatever he wants to write about. “One of the cool things about this job is that there’s not a lot of structure to it,” he said. “Most of the time, I tell my boss what I’m working on, then I write it and it goes in the paper. It’s a great job. It’s really self-directed.” For the past three years, Hansen has used the freedom of his column to find and tell the kinds of stories that reflect and fuel his optimism and curiosity. When scouting for his next piece, he says that he looks for stories that amaze or intrigue him. “I look for things that interest me in the hope that if they interest me they’ll interest other people too,” he said. “I look for stories about people, stories that have some sort of built-in drama to them. And I look for stuff that’s weird, too. Some of the stuff that I really like that I’ve written was the weird stuff.” Hansen said that he usually doesn't have to look very far for his stories. Most of the time, he said that he stumbles across his stories in the course of living his daily life. This serendipitous approach to finding stories for his column reflects one of the fundamental themes of Hansen’s work: that many of the best stories are all around us. “A lot of my ideas will just be from paying attention as I go around the city,” Hansen said. “I just live my life and run into stories.” As a result of this approach, Hansen’s column has spanned a diverse range of topics. His eye for slice-of-life stories has led him to write columns about just about every corner of life in Omaha, Nebraska. He has written stories on baseball and barbecue, politicians and poets, video games and veterans. Although Hansen’s topics vary greatly from column to column, his writing style does not. No matter what he’s writing about, Hansen writes about it in a distinctive narrative prose. At once poetic and conversational, his writing is as consistent as it is coherent; however, Hansen said it wasn’t always that way. He said it took him nearly 20 years to get to where he is now, professionally as well as stylistically. Hansen’s journey to the World-Herald, and indeed his whole career in journalism, began when he was in high school. Born and raised in Red Cloud, Nebraska, a small town near the Kansas border with a population of little more than 1,000, Hansen said he couldn’t recall having written anything meaningful to him before he joined the Red Cloud High School newspaper during his sophomore year. It didn’t take long for him to get hooked on journalism. “It was kind of the first thing I thought I was good at, so I just stuck with it," he said. After high school, Hansen left Red Cloud to attend the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, where he planned to major in journalism. After a year, however, he left KU and transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It was there -- at UNL, in the basement of the Nebraska Union, at the offices of the student newspaper, the Daily Nebraskan -- that Hansen found the perfect outlet to showcase and develop his journalistic skills. Just as importantly, the Daily Nebraskan provided him with a home away from home. “It was just the beginning of me connecting to (UNL) and realizing that it was a much more comfortable place for me,” Hansen said. “I immediately became obsessed with the place." Hansen’s hard work at the Daily Nebraskan began paying dividends. For one, he used his stories there to get a series of internships during college at local and regional newspapers such as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hansen’s work with the Daily Nebraskan also attracted a number of professors in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at UNL. One of these professors, Joseph Starita, became one of Hansen’s chief mentors. Hansen credits working with Starita, who specializes in narrative journalism, for much of his development as a writer and journalist. Under the tutelage of Starita, Hansen honed his writing style and expanded his repertoire beyond sports and basic news to include longer, more serious enterprise stories. Starita also opened doors for Hansen, taking him and other students to Cuba for a depth reporting class and guiding him to enter and win several prestigious collegiate journalism awards, including a couple of Hearst Journalism Awards. After graduating from UNL in 2003 and spending his summer post graduation at the Democrat-Gazette, Hansen moved back to Lincoln to work at the Lincoln Journal Star as a higher education reporter. In four years at the Journal Star, he didn’t just cover higher education. He took any chance he could get to branch out, jumping on feature stories whenever he came across them and building a sizeable portfolio of human interest pieces in a short amount of time. His penchant for feature storytelling even got him an assignment in Iraq, where he covered the human costs of the war there. By 2007, Hansen had built a winning resume at the Journal Star -- and the Omaha World-Herald had noticed. That year, the World-Herald offered him a job as a higher education reporter. Sensing that he had accomplished as much as he could in his current place of employment, Hansen took the job and moved to Omaha. In Omaha, Hansen was the higher education reporter for three years. After that, he wrote stories about the military using his penchant for narrative journalism to tell stories about the lives of Nebraskans in the armed forces. By allowing Hansen to flex his narrative chops for the World-Herald, the military beat served as a kind of precursor to his present column. After four years as the military reporter, Hansen was promoted to columnist. In his first three years as a columnist, he has written more than 200 columns and continues to write two every week. By David Eickholt University of Nebraska-Lincoln Former CBS Interactive lead college football blogger Adam Jacobi is finding success in the business world after a high-profile gaffe: In January 2012, he falsely reported former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had died. Paterno died later that month, but the error cost Jacobi his job. Since his stint with CBS Interactive, Jacobi is making use of the economics degree he earned in 2015 from the University of Iowa. In March, he took a job handling mergers and acquisitions for MidAmerican Energy, a power company in Des Moines, Iowa. He said he took the lessons and skills he learned about content creation and found a way to merge it into his new career. “I’m still doing research and I’m still presenting the results of this research. It’s taking myself from relative ignorance to expertise,” said Jacobi, 34. In 2010, Jacobi joined CBS and wrote stories and also served as a go between for editors and writers. The process for constructing blog posts was a simple one. Jacobi typically would get a link, write a post and put it up on the CBS sports website. When he read a story in a Penn State student publication that Paterno had died, Jacobi knew he couldn’t approach it the same way. “This was different," he said, "get ready for one of the most important (obituaries) in college football history,” he said of his feelings at the time. A few minutes after he posted the article saying Paterno had died, his co-workers and producers began to question it and the absence of a source for the information. Other media outlets had also falsely reported Paterno's death. Soon after Jacobi posted it, Paterno's family said the coach had not died. Jacobi said in the aftermath of the error, he saw the dark side of social media. He was being bashed and threatened. CBS launched a review as well. “I still worked while they were doing the review on me," Jacobi said. CBS gave him a two-week notice, he said. "They left it to me to tell everyone," he said. "All I wanted to do the whole time was to apologize to the Paterno family." After that, Jacobi went on to write for the Big Ten Blog at Bleacher Report, where he worked for about a year. On the lighter side, Jacobi is also known for his Twitter prowess. On Father's Day in 2015, he posted a series of rambling tweets about his father on Storify and he posted another series of pun tweets during the World Cup soccer championship. His advice in this realm? “Identify things that aren’t available anywhere else and you push them hard and put them in front of people," he said. "But at the same time, don’t make people feel bad about reading it.” Jacobi no longer works full time in sports media, but he still feels the pull to contribute something. Jacobi is editor of Black Heart Gold Pants, an Iowa Hawkeye fan sports website he launched in 2007 as part of the SB Nation network. The site is owned by Vox Media. “We noticed Iowa fans in the mid 2000s weren’t really actively involved on message boards and we wanted to change that," Jacobi said. The rules included no writing about politics and the mantra that everyone is welcome. He has enjoyed seeing the site, now owned by Vox Media, grow. “I remember on one of my posts, I received 100 or so views and I told myself 'Wow, 100 whole people has viewed what I wrote,'" he said. "To see what we have become now, it’s just cool to see.” Jacobi's first gig at sports writing was for the Daily Iowan, whee he covered women’s rowing because it was the only thing available at the time. He said he loved the experience and it was a lot of fun. Jacobi enjoys his new job, but he hasn’t truly moved on from content creation - he is still involved in Black Heart Gold Pants. "I just can’t leave this site right now," he said. "I love the people that have helped me create it.” By Molly Meister University of Nebraska-Lincoln Sarah Hoffman, 25, is determined to go beyond the lens and hopes to produce more than just pretty pictures. For Hoffman, being a photojournalist is about more than just taking pictures. It's about giving back to the community and creating reactions. “Being able to impact people through photography is very rewarding,” said Hoffman in a phone interview when asked what she loves about photojournalism. Hoffman discovered a passion for visual communications at a young age and later found that photojournalism was the perfect way to combine all of her skills and interests. For Hoffman, it is all about staying interested and staying on her toes. She says that being a photojournalist provides her with the variety that she needs to never get bored. Now a full-time staff photographer for the Omaha World-Herald, Hoffman has the chance do to what she loves everyday. “Everyday at the World-Herald is full of surprises and every assignment is always different. There is no typical day for me,” said Hoffman. Hoffman works on one to three different assignments a day, some being longer and more interesting than others. In the past year, Hoffman has spent more time producing video rather than photos, which she says can be more challenging. Hoffman says that working on longer more in-depth projects is more rewarding and interesting and is what she is passionate about. Some of the projects assigned to her can last multiple days, while some take less than an hour. “The longer the project, the more interested and involved I get, which is what I like most about my job,” she said. While at the University of Missouri, Hoffman developed the skills to become a successful photographer. With photography and journalism skills, Hoffman is able to self edit all of her content, which has become extremely important now that the World-Herald does not have staff editors. Before landing a job at the World-Herald, Hoffman held several other internships and posts. Upon graduating from the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in political science in 2013, Hoffman worked as the executive producer on the My Life, My Town multimedia project where she managed a group of graduate students who documented the lives of rural teens in Missouri between 2012 and 2013. She later interned in Dallas as a photographer for The Dallas Morning News in 2014. Hoffman also worked at the Jefferson City News Tribune, The Maneater, a student newspaper, and The Columbia Missourian. Hoffman has won awards for her work. She placed third in the Hearst Journalism Awards National Championship for multimedia in the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 competition. In the College Photographer of the Year contest, she was awarded bronze in Large Group Multimedia and an Award of Excellence in Solo Journalist Multimedia Story or Essay. Although Hoffman has had ample opportunities and has been successful thus far in her career as a photojournalist, she has not gone without challenges. Problem solving on the spot has become an important part of Hoffman’s everyday work. “The most challenging part about being a photojournalist is dealing with the pressure to take interesting and high-quality photos. Sometimes the lighting is bad and the story just isn’t that interesting, which makes my job hard,” said Hoffman. However, above all else, the most important part about being a photojournalist in her eyes is providing a visual learning experience for readers. Hoffman believes that everyone learns differently and that it is empowering to help people learn through her work at the World-Herald. “As a person that gets to see what is happening first hand out in the world, it is important to be an eyewitness to history,” said Hoffman. Hoffman has found joy in her photography career and continues to share her work not only through the World-Herald but through her self maintained blog and website where she keeps viewers and fans updated with her latest assignments and projects. |
A note about the content: This site showcases the final projects of University of Nebraska-Lincoln editing students. Each semester, students pick a journalist or communications professional to profile. This is their work.
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